Dog Aliens

I was given the opportunity to review this book for free in anticipation of the release of the second book.  As a dog lover, I was intrigued by the title and couldn’t pass it up.  

The author Cherise Kelly was very imaginative in allowing the story to be written completely from inside of the dog’s mind.  You are introduced to Clem, the dog whose mind you will be a passenger of for the remainder of the story.  Clem is a reincarnated alien dog from outer space.  He is on his 99^th life and is a 6 month old puppy.  He is from the planet Kax and there is an interesting back story.  

Clem has a bit of a rough start in this life and find himself in possession of some abnormal abilities.  There are distinguishing alien races between the large and small dogs and the inability to effectively communicate with cats.  This was a fun and light read and I could relate to many of the dog/cat interactions.  

The Kaxians (alien dogs from Kax) have come to Earth to spend their lives mining Jax.   Jax is also needed for the Niques (the small dog breeds).  This results in them being at odds with one another.  

The cons for me: What in the heck is Jax?  Having no idea what this was or what it would do for the Kaxians was really annoying.  All you know when reading is that it is very important and their life’s work but by the end of the story you are none the wiser.   There was a bit of jumping around in the story without cohesive flow between ideas.  The wolves for example are telling a story and then it shifts back to Clem and later back to the wolves and to an almost exact same dialogue.  As I was reading on my kindle I had to shift back and forth a couple of times to be sure that I was actually reading a new passage and not getting shifted back to an earlier part within the story.  There were too many loose ends at the end of the story and things to wonder about.  It didn’t feel like anything really got resolved by the end of the story.  It was apparent that another story would follow, but it shouldn’t involve every single issue from the first book (in my humble opinion).  Give your reader a tiny bit of relief or you will lose them.

Pros: Very imaginative.  Quick and easy to read, very good for a light read.  If you are an animal owner (especially dog or cat) you should be able to see something of your own pet within these characters.  There is now a sequel so that hopefully some of the unanswered questions will bear fruition within the second installment.   It is very fun to read from inside the mind of an alien dog.  

All in all I recommend it for a filler book, I give it 3/5 starts.  It doesn’t have a lot of re-readability but the story is intriguing enough to want to continue on with the series.